M363 + Shadow of a Soul

Merlin + 3:63 + Shadow of a Soul

Close to ground of stone and soil is a fog thinner than whisper, enough that dew drops permeate the slope of a moonlit mountainside, the basin of bog and willows a valley of purity and moonlight, as stars and ethereal sky cover everything aside a tall and endless spine of mountainous ridge that distantly bifurcates many times with the great triumvirates of mountain, mystery, and night. Calm and quietus as her mighty egret carries Kylesa Mara above reflective ponds, in air it knows not day or night, the phoenix and rider Troy wait for her near the summit where the dins of battle cannot yet be heard, for this is the side of peacefulness where reflection of light from white feathers glows into his much radiant eyesight. In the same moment the avian opens for her landing beneath its wings faintly echoes the sound of conflict.

O’er the mountain, its other side much darker, the moon hangs as an angle of it, to look downward at the sight of dangerous edges and hidden mosses, dark shadows beneath each crag and jagged spiny scale of the granite, filling age-long cracks with weeds to blindly pull in disaster. This ground to climb unwelcoming by the blindfolded enemies and worse by the moonlight making villains into werewolves only on the heads of boulders, making them targets to the eyeless on the shadow-stricken rise. If not a werewolf oneself, imagine wounds that only heal in moonlight as Sino’s army attacks. Never slipping they slash at beasts who can pull into shadows to hide in mortality, dragging their wounded into being surrounded where the advantage is to the servants of the moonlight, and in this conflict even the men with the scarves on their eyes are still human, their stamina tested and having rested, despite the artifacts of protection to thicken skins or kindle dark magic’s purest sins, agility of foot and speedily stepping on the fallen as if the night ground were memorized.

A few torches lay aground strewn, flickering firelights against their faces distracted, a howl behind a stone from wounded hybrid without his moonlight magic, he is alone and restless, and then he is surrounded, but he smiles with bloodied face, for they are the surrounded. The mountainside is indolent and quiet as it swallows desolate echoes with fog and grass.

Werewolves feeding in the distance on the guards of the mountain, at their boundary new screams for new blood for new feeding rites of passage and power of healing, as the last man leaves the shadows for the passing moonlight he becomes a stoic wolf and feeds on the cursed.

A distant darkness serves silent footsteps where the earth sleeps, the trees hold their breath in fear of dropping leaves in her presence, Lilith, the first bloodborn, walks thru shadows like withering waves up the mountain, she is invisible in the moonlight and silent in darkness to the blindfold-men, a face of rage she does not blink. Her path is purposed and clear, passing by fighters for the violence, as blood familiar and new sprays into the wind, the bloodshed sprays on her face and lips is the smell in the air and taste on her fingers as her eyes become night.

As the night builds to crash across the sunset valley behind the other side of the mountains, the many caverns are a contrast of torches and inescapable blackness, where we find Sino balancing both, torch in left hand, a potion in the other that swirls three dark colors, his hand trembles, his eyes frenetic like panicked sleep as he drinks it. He calms unnecessarily, with eyes closed he hears the coven footsteps of intruders and digs his heels turning in the dirt.

The sound of a growing stormy sky becomes one with clashing steel and shield, a fist strikes a claw. Sino puts the necklace received from Belladonna around his wrist, firmly but cautious of the tunnel exits. Vampires approach the cavern, silent steps carrying sternly carried leather armor and the occasional scar, emptying themselves slowly into the open.

Uriel: Do – not – walk more!
Sino: A command… …by f* who…?
Vermillion: I am Vermillion.
Sino: How colorful.
Vermillion: I’ve come for the blood of traitors.
Sino: You’ve come for the blood of the undead?
Vermillion: Have you cheated death?
Sino: So many this day could be the anniversary of it. Have I cheated you?
Vermillion: If I find you’ve granted a stay to my betraying minions, so you have.
Sino: Their crime?
Vermillion: Stealing an immortal not theirs.
Sino: Tall like a corn stalk, funny even with a dagger in his heart?

Ana cries with her heart of fear and soul of desperation loudly from the next room.

Ana: I KNOW OF WHERE THEY ARE, THEY TOOK ME FROM HIM, THAT MONSTER BETRAYS YOU IN THIS MOMENT, I WILL TAKE YOU TO THEM!
Sino: You are many and this is your mountain, search it readily, but my guest, she won’t be taken.
Vermillion: Why wait to stop us…. (smile)….no dragon, Sino?
Sino: To hell with you!

Sino raises his hand and the green magic of the stone covers them, a pain and anguish as many escape others suffer verdant fire making them claw at the ground. Sino’s soldiers run into the cavern beginning to help him stab the accursed.

Blindfolded Man (Velen): Wolves attack, we are losing our numbers!
Sino: Dammit!

Sino puts his hand to the blind-soldier’s chest, the heart slows then stops. The blind soldier feels cold, green magic thunders thru him appearing as a green vapor warmth.

Sino: Vimond, you are my greatest soldier, but you will only survive if others die.
Vimond: I understand, I will destroy what I see.

The blindfolded soldier leads others toward vampires within the tunnels, Sino looks at his own hand to see it glow, the radiance courses into him and his eyes cloud, the soldier he touched runs with a fainter aura than the rest.

Vermillion walks around looking at things in the high-mountain dungeon and reminiscing at the walls, the blindfolded soldier that Sino had touched charges at them, but they the vampires are too skilled to defeat, almost taunting the blind, but refuse to fight the soldier without a heartbeat, shunned from conflict and outright ignored.

As the vampire monarch taps his finger on something, the blind-soldier wanders at the sound of the ticking dethklok, the vampires are confused by the fading heart and dragging feet, stumbling toward their monarch in timeless fashion, but with a failing heart falls forever short.

Vermillion: I guess his heart wasn’t in it. 

/ mj.banks / 

Merlin 3x62 Bound by the Moon

M3:62 / Bound by the Moon / mjbanks

I.
Merlin cordons his waist and runs into a glide for a horse into the city without explaining, chasing to catch the danger at the cost of scant consent. Braden’s fellow of the earth magic, Digr, raises his hand beckoned by the trail and pointing as to find it, he and Braden’s troupe as if reluctant begin to follow. Sino knows he is to be trailed and takes a bottle of lantern fuel and pours it on himself and Ana, she smells her hands, realizing what it is and using the magic of fire makes it explode, but to merely aggravation of Sino he knocks her out, again. He throws another bottle at a man on the road then holds a sword outward at the man, smiling with vicious grin, a quiet ride, seemingly without hurry.

II.
The light of sunset and rising moon, the heat growing humid in the foothills of the nearby mountain as the other side’s mist rolls over its top. The werewolves track Sino’s scent until finding lantern oil in its stead, and that smell to a man on the roadside. One beast throws a stone into dead leaves and branches, another howls deeply into the sky above the clouds, from the fire Lilith rises elevated.

Wolvic: We’ve lost his scent with this man and lantern fuel.

Lilith takes the man by his hair and bites into his throat, with blood his primordial memories, then dropping him down.

Lilith: Follow the fuel up the mountain, now.
Wolvic: But the moon is dying, the turn is blind to darkness.
Lilith: I AM darkness behind you if you don’t get up that mountain!

III.
Sino drags her into the mountain as if a light bag of wool by her arm.

Sino: My oath to Merlin, you will understand, burns in the great darkness, I am warmth to the blind, seeing my reflection in axes sharp and hammers dull.
Ana: (waking) …in the darkness, we celebrate our joys, appreciating them not for granted what simple blessings others forbid, in day honest, thieves celebrate themselves without satisfaction, standing stormy night where there are cries and echoes, we are lightning and thunder.
Sino: Quote the book all you wish, it does not turn, amongst the humans – with you the page will turn, soon this old story will be ended.

Soldiers in blindfolds approach them.

Ana: To play with fire, first dance with smoke.
Sino: But there are no stars burning in the cursed sky.
Ana: Was it raining blood?
Sino: Secure her, there is little time before the dawn eclipse. Without moons or stars she cannot waste the strength that keeps the child.
Ana: You’ll burn for this.
Sino: That, is, the plan.
Ana: I’m going to burn your bloody marrow while you’re still using it!
Sino: No, you will help me to the surface of this present darkness.

The blinded are guarding Ana.

IV.
In the tunnels two of the blindfolded patrol for intruders, amidst a conversation. (required spell: night vision)

Ciego: So, she puts a paring knife to the fruit and nobody moves.
Aveugle: But if he’s made of stone, how is it a damage point?
Ciego: Because stones melt into lava in a volcano.
Aveugle: Yeah, but fresh obsidian melts steel so it doesn’t make any sense.

The warriors of Fortress Vermillion hear the story thru the dark, seeing as if lit brightly, the sentries see them all but soon enuf, one of them captured, the other killed.

King Vermillion: She survives as a flame survives a candle. How many others are you?
Ciego: I cannot see you, my guide into the light, will you help me to the surface of this darkness?
Vermillion: He is blind.

The king’s Lt, Artemis, almost drinks the blind one’s blood, but the king prevents it.

Vermillion: Both blind, both careless, Artemis, take this one to the fortress abattoir for a priest’s interrogation.

King Vermillion moves deeper into the darkness with others following, he drags his fingers across the rough granite wall.











~mjbanks